I got to meet him and a pre Raven, Scotty "The Body" Levy, back when they wrestled for Portland Wrestling. Norton was really cool. "Raven" was okay. He just had this naturally condescending tone, that made people think that he thought he was the smartest guy in the building. Years later, I learned that he most likely was. 😂
I just watched RVD telling a story about her starting shit between him & Norton. Also heard something about her almost getting him killed in Japan, now your comment. She sounds like a real pleasure to be around! 😂 Pardon my ignorance. I never really knew much about Norton, until recent interviews
The first time I studied abroad in Japan in 2001, I was surprised how huge of a star Norton was. All my Japanese classmates who were wrestling fans were surprised he was relatively a nobody in the US.
I made this point to Nigel McGuiness at the Empire in Belfast after he did a doc showing and he looked at me like I stole his lunch money. He was planning to start some sort of hybrid (shoot & worked on the same show) show I think. Tbf Josh Barnett has found a small niche for Bloodsport which is presented as a hybrid (worked but presented like a shoot).
The fact that Yuji Nagata's only two MMA fights were against Mirko Cro Cop and Fedor Enelianenko. Inoki set his wrestlers up for failure by this kind of matchmaking. If he wanted them to fight they should have fought people of the same experience.
With all due respect to Scott Norton, he was never gonna throw anybody over the top rope in Pride. It doesn't matter how powerful he was in the gym. He would have taken a loss in the Pride ring, unless they fed him a complete and total jobber.
Facts, he would have already been 39/40 when Pride really took off in 2000/2001 and had no amateur wrestling/Martial Arts background and had been taking bumps in Professional Wrestling for the last 11 years. He was strong but he wasn't skilled or particularly fast or athletic like Bob Sapp who was also a lot younger. Norton would have gotten beat by a regional MMA heavyweight let alone a Pride/UFC Heavyweight.
Mr. Norton... the Inoki vs. Ali match was not an 'exhibition.' Ali was hospitalized after the fight and Inoki injured his right foot after all those sliding kicks - simply not an outcome for an exhibition. With respect to what Inoki envisioned for his younger boys, it had a lot to do with how he trained when starting out in JWA (Japan Wrestling Association) in the 1960s. The organization had legit jujitsu and Kosen judo types, amateur wrestlers, and others who believed in developing skills for shoot matches. This was before Karl Gotch came along to Japan to coach promising talent. But Inoki's spirit sadly did not get passed on and NJPW today is really no different from what you have in the U.S.
The match had effect on the standing of Inoki or Ali in their respective sports, thus it was very much an exhibition. An exhibition doesn't mean they're just demonstrating moves. It is a match or game that doesn't affect rankings.
They were suppose to do a WWE style match with ALI knocking Inoki out in the middle rounds but the Ali camp didn’t trust the wrestlers and it became a real fight both participants being overly cautious
there was another part of the interview where I think Scott said he was pushing 350, anyways, if I'm misremembering I think he was at least 300 anyways, from the sounds of it, he was a big guy I don't think I knew Scott Norton before this year, and I think I actually learned about him from a Buff Bagwell video
I hate to say it but imo it’s mick foley and c.m. Punks fault. Genuinely believe that put a look and a vibe that we could never come back from. There’s others things but these two are the biggest imo
There are still genuine tough guys today, it's just that there is a new type of smaller wrestlers now due to the influence of lucha libre. Guys like Walter or the Butcher prove that.
MMA is serious and I respect it and understand why fans like it. Looking at fake martial artists now the con artists who used to trick people I am glad it's down to a science. But that said, its influence made wrestling less fun. Especially in Japan. and eventually here in the states. I also like how fun and cheesy martial arts were in 80s and 90s before MMA became a big thing. I'd also rather watch the wild west days of early UFC over current boring UFC.
Inoki also put Manabu Nakanishi who was a good Freestyle Wrestler that wrestled in the Olympics in a KICKBOXING match despite clearly having very little training on striking. He got knocked out by ex New Zealand's strongest man Paul Kingi in less than two minutes.
@@VultureLivesAgain Yeah, but those two arts are really well rounded and even more so in the past as sport rulesets didn't limit them like they do with judo today. Those two would likely be the base everyone would train.
@@stevenoconnor3256 Is catch wrestling limited by sport rulesets today? Why would catch wrestling have been a dominant base 100 years ago, and yet it's so uncommon today?
@@VultureLivesAgain Wresting is dominant in MMA today. Catch wrestling is wrestling with everything in it and the main sport became professional wrestling and the rest took out the submission for being dangerous. It's an almost dead art.
Tito Ortiz in Jon Jones were D2 wrestling colleges and we're not standouts and became UFC champions. Believe it or not high school wrestlers are pretty dangerous specially raised an state that cares about wrestling
Yeah but Norton is not referring to those guys, he's referring to guys who were professional wrestlers for years and had amateur wrestling backgrounds but after years of just doing Pro Wrestling they were expected to win shoot fights against guys who had been fighting all that time. Yuji Nagata was a good amateur wrestler but had been wrestling professionally for ten years by the time he fought in MMA, way past his competitive prime at 33 years old and likely not trained any amateur wrestling since being a professional wrestler they put him against a great Kickboxer and upcoming great MMA fighter Mirko Cro Cop. Kazuyuki Fujita and Shinsuke Nakamura were two guys who were clearly better shoot fighters than the rest of the Japanese wrestlers due to Shinsuke being in his early 20's so he wasn't far removed from his amateur wrestling days and Fujita has only wrestled professionally for four years until he fought in MMA. Fujita had also seeked out further training from Marco Ruas. What Inoki did to Yuji Nagata would be the equivalent to having Kurt Angle at 35 in 2003 after breaking his neck and several years of abusing his body in professional wrestling and suddenly expecting him to beat guys like Chuck Liddell or Tito Ortiz.
and GSP had no wrestling background, and was probably considered the best mma wrestler in mma like Josh Koscheck seemed like an incredible athlete, and great wrestler and it was surprizing when George got a takedown on him
@@justanobody0 GSP has been training in Martial Arts since he was a child and had his first MMA fight at 20, he dedicated his whole life to fighting. Not like the Japanese Pro wrestlers who did some amateur wrestling then stopped to completely focus on the professional aspect for 10+years then try to fight top fighters.
@kevthegoat8774 you bring up Kurt Angle and Mirko Crocop well Shane Carwin seemed to have legitimate back problems (akin to Kurt angle) and he was like 33 when he faced Gabriel Gonzaga (and won) and since you brought up Crocop, Gonzga had beaten Crocop
@@justanobody0Shane Carwin had his first professional fight in 2005 at 30 years old while also being an assistant wrestling coach. Carwin even in 2005 destroys Angle who would have been 37 years old and going through a pain pill addiction.
@@moonkim2598 That's true. He also heavily taped up his ankles before the fight, knowing that Shamrock would likely go for heel hooks. But, to be fair to Don, he was very tough in general, and he never tapped out in his career. It looked like he was gonna allow Yoshida to break his arm when they fought. Don was caught in an arm bar and there was no indication that he was gonna tap. But the ref wisely stopped the match in time.
Norton may have been a powerhouse but he didn't have the amateur wrestling skills of guys like Yuji Nagata and Manabu Nakanishi who were put in shoots and didn't do great, Norton wouldn't have done any better than either of them.
that would be like saying if Bob Sapp couldn't beat Ernesto Hoost that would mean Bill Goldberg couldn't beat Ernesto Hoost, because Bob Sapp and Bill Goldberg are both former football players by your logic Brock Lesnar (a pro wrestler) never should've beaten Heath Herring, because Brock is a pro wrestler with basically no mma experience (2nd fight) and Heath Herring was very experienced in mma in Japan
@@justanobody0Sapp and Lesnar are freaks of nature. Also Sapp did have some good wins like Hoost twice and Abidi he also lost to multiple much more experienced fighters like Sefo, Cro Cop, Bonjasky, Musashi, Aerts etc who all pretty much handled Sapp with little problems. Lesnar was an NCAA D1 Champion who had started MMA training in 2005, only a few years removed from his amateur wrestling days in 2000. Heath Herring was Lesnar's third MMA fight, Herring was at the end of his career and while durable was never good at defending takedowns. Jake O'Brien did the exact same thing to Herring not long before Lesnar did where he took him down multiple times with ease. There's many legitimate tough guys in professional wrestling, but switching to MMA after professional wrestling for years is usually not a recipe for success. Guys like Rodney Mack and Sean O'Haire are great examples as Rodney Mack was a State Wrestling Champion with Greco Roman Wrestling experience and O'Haire was a Martial Artist but after a few years of Professional Wrestling they went into MMA and Mack went 1-1 and O'Haire went 4-2 and 0-4 in K-1 (The matchmaking was bad for him though. If you want to see the difference between Lesnar and most professional wrestlers when it comes to shoot fighting, watch Sean O'Haire and Brock Lesnar's fights back to back with common opponent Kim Min-soo.
Scott Norton needs to read the Rough and Tumble book to learn how MMA was spawned from pro wrestling in Japan before Cro Cop or Don Frye with Shooto, Pancrase and Rings. He is a bit ignorant of the history before PrideFC
I'm not sure why Norton should have accepted a fight deal nor do I know why he was offered one although I assume it was the 90's when it was still more about freakiness and pitting styles against one another etc. but to my knowledge Norton does not have any training in real fighting. It's probably a good thing for his legacy that he did not accept the offer.
I'm guessing he's talking about the mid 2000's here when Inoki was going crazy booking his wrestlers in shoot fights. Norton may have been very strong and I'm sure he was a great bouncer/bodyguard but he has no wrestling/Martial Arts background. He would have got destroyed just like Yuji Nagata did. Manabu Nakanishi was a Freestyle Wrestler that wrestled in the Olympics 1992. After 11 years of professional wrestling Inoki booked him in a Kickboxing match despite having no striking training against ex New Zealand's strongest man Paul Kingi, Nakanishi got knocked out in two minutes. Inoki also booked him in MMA which made more sense but put him against fellow wrestler Kazuyuki Fujita who was much more experienced in MMA at the time so lost that one too. Nakanishi no doubt would have beaten Norton though.
@kevthegoat8774 Yeah. There are a couple shoot or fight stories about Norton and both of them seem to have Norton not coming out on top. One was with the black karate guy who allegedly kicked him in the ring and Norton did nothing and another alleged incident was with Tony Halme knocking him out in a bar. Some say it was a sucker punch and the whole story may be a fabrication but Tony (AKA Ludvig Borga) was a legitimate boxing champion though known for his sloppy technique; I think it's doubtful that Tony would have needed to sucker punch Norton given that he went on to beat the European boxing champion in the ring. Other than Tony's boxing they would have been quite evenly matched.
@kevthegoat8774 as I understand it Ernesto Hoost is considered one of the greatest kickboxers of all time, if not the greatest and Bob Sapp beat him twice I think? (at least once if I recall correctly) I don't think anyone would say Bob Sapp trained more kickboxing, or has better technique, but at the end of the day Bob Sapp won (twice?) and the other thing I'd say is, you don't know who is going to win until the bout happens would everyone say a 45 year Dan Henderson who fought at MW (185 pounds) would be Fedor?
@@justanobody0 Bob Sapp was 29 years old with insane size/athletic ability. He was much fresher and stronger than professional wrestlers who had been abusing their bodies for years in worked matches and not doing any training.
@kevthegoat8774 "He was much fresher and stronger than professional wrestlers who had been abusing their bodies for years" well, I guess someone would have to ask Scott Norton how his body felt at that time in the video he said he wanted to do mma when he was offered, so it sounds like he felt good
Absolutely loving the Scott Norton stories. I’d love to crack a beer with him and just listen to his stories and insights.
I got to meet him and a pre Raven, Scotty "The Body" Levy, back when they wrestled for Portland Wrestling.
Norton was really cool.
"Raven" was okay. He just had this naturally condescending tone, that made people think that he thought he was the smartest guy in the building. Years later, I learned that he most likely was. 😂
I remember on old message boards when Josh Barnett and Norton's wife had beef.
I just watched RVD telling a story about her starting shit between him & Norton. Also heard something about her almost getting him killed in Japan, now your comment. She sounds like a real pleasure to be around! 😂 Pardon my ignorance. I never really knew much about Norton, until recent interviews
She’s probably tired of “hearing” how tough Scott is and actually wants to see it
i remember dan severn and steve blackman! them are some tough ace dudes!
One's a wrestler who did some martial arts in his spare time, the other is a martial artist who did some wrestling in his spare time.
@@johnny5805 and i liked them both! is there something you wanted to say?
@@johnny5805 also one is retired and one is a bounty hunter!
@@johnny5805 what is your point?
@@johnny5805 you replied to me with a comment that makes no sense at all
The first time I studied abroad in Japan in 2001, I was surprised how huge of a star Norton was. All my Japanese classmates who were wrestling fans were surprised he was relatively a nobody in the US.
Hi Scott! It's Marcia from the old neighborhood. Shingle Creek.
This is fascinating! Im also a huge mma fan. Cool to hear this from someone who was a big wrestling star in Japan at the time of the rise of Pride.
I made this point to Nigel McGuiness at the Empire in Belfast after he did a doc showing and he looked at me like I stole his lunch money. He was planning to start some sort of hybrid (shoot & worked on the same show) show I think.
Tbf Josh Barnett has found a small niche for Bloodsport which is presented as a hybrid (worked but presented like a shoot).
I enjoyed UWFI when it was on.
The fact that Yuji Nagata's only two MMA fights were against Mirko Cro Cop and Fedor Enelianenko. Inoki set his wrestlers up for failure by this kind of matchmaking. If he wanted them to fight they should have fought people of the same experience.
AJPW & NOAH was a fascinating story
Baba's wife pretty much caused all of that.
R.I.P. Giant Baba
@PontFlair yeah. The fact that AJPW managed to survive a major exodus 3 times is crazy.
@@loboneiner1034 I haven't heard much from AJPW with the exception of Kentoh Miahara. Are they even still around?
@@PontFlairHarry Smith became their triple crown champion over there
@@andrewsarkis4516 in AJPW? They still exist?!?👀
With all due respect to Scott Norton, he was never gonna throw anybody over the top rope in Pride. It doesn't matter how powerful he was in the gym. He would have taken a loss in the Pride ring, unless they fed him a complete and total jobber.
Facts, he would have already been 39/40 when Pride really took off in 2000/2001 and had no amateur wrestling/Martial Arts background and had been taking bumps in Professional Wrestling for the last 11 years. He was strong but he wasn't skilled or particularly fast or athletic like Bob Sapp who was also a lot younger. Norton would have gotten beat by a regional MMA heavyweight let alone a Pride/UFC Heavyweight.
@kevthegoat8774 And even Bob Sapp wasn't a world beater in Pride. Not that he had many matches.
The MMA stuff in NJPW was too much at times. It felt weird visually
Never cared for Norton's in the ring but he's a great interview.
Mr. Norton... the Inoki vs. Ali match was not an 'exhibition.' Ali was hospitalized after the fight and Inoki injured his right foot after all those sliding kicks - simply not an outcome for an exhibition. With respect to what Inoki envisioned for his younger boys, it had a lot to do with how he trained when starting out in JWA (Japan Wrestling Association) in the 1960s. The organization had legit jujitsu and Kosen judo types, amateur wrestlers, and others who believed in developing skills for shoot matches. This was before Karl Gotch came along to Japan to coach promising talent. But Inoki's spirit sadly did not get passed on and NJPW today is really no different from what you have in the U.S.
The match had effect on the standing of Inoki or Ali in their respective sports, thus it was very much an exhibition. An exhibition doesn't mean they're just demonstrating moves. It is a match or game that doesn't affect rankings.
They were suppose to do a WWE style match with ALI knocking Inoki out in the middle rounds but the Ali camp didn’t trust the wrestlers and it became a real fight both participants being overly cautious
there was another part of the interview where I think Scott said he was pushing 350, anyways, if I'm misremembering I think he was at least 300
anyways, from the sounds of it, he was a big guy
I don't think I knew Scott Norton before this year, and I think I actually learned about him from a Buff Bagwell video
In his prime, Norton was a tank of a man and was an arm wrestling champion before getting into pro wrestling
How did wrestling go from genuine tough guys like Don Frye and Scott Norton to drama club rejects like the Bucks and Omega.
Prob when ppl started suing each other lol
I would fly to Japan to watch Norton and Frye vs "The Elite" IF I knew it would turn into a shoot LOL
I hate to say it but imo it’s mick foley and c.m. Punks fault. Genuinely believe that put a look and a vibe that we could never come back from. There’s others things but these two are the biggest imo
@@russellcampbell3500 wtf are you talking about? LOL
There are still genuine tough guys today, it's just that there is a new type of smaller wrestlers now due to the influence of lucha libre. Guys like Walter or the Butcher prove that.
Yeah it's like trying too make the NFL into the Arena league or NBA into a Harlem Globetrotters stunt.Just will never work
A reverse brawl for all
MMA is serious and I respect it and understand why fans like it. Looking at fake martial artists now the con artists who used to trick people I am glad it's down to a science. But that said, its influence made wrestling less fun. Especially in Japan. and eventually here in the states. I also like how fun and cheesy martial arts were in 80s and 90s before MMA became a big thing. I'd also rather watch the wild west days of early UFC over current boring UFC.
💯 second all of this
Inoki also put Manabu Nakanishi who was a good Freestyle Wrestler that wrestled in the Olympics in a KICKBOXING match despite clearly having very little training on striking. He got knocked out by ex New Zealand's strongest man Paul Kingi in less than two minutes.
Pro wrestling comes from catch wrestling. A 100 or more years ago MMA would be almost nothing but catch wrestlers and judo guys.
There were plenty more martial arts than that, don't you think?
@@VultureLivesAgain Yeah, but those two arts are really well rounded and even more so in the past as sport rulesets didn't limit them like they do with judo today. Those two would likely be the base everyone would train.
@@stevenoconnor3256 Is catch wrestling limited by sport rulesets today? Why would catch wrestling have been a dominant base 100 years ago, and yet it's so uncommon today?
@@VultureLivesAgain Wresting is dominant in MMA today. Catch wrestling is wrestling with everything in it and the main sport became professional wrestling and the rest took out the submission for being dangerous. It's an almost dead art.
@@stevenoconnor3256 Wrestling is fairly dominant. But not catch wrestling.
That must've been where Frye met the legend that is HAKU!
It's real to me, dammit!!!!
It still is,it is now called "Strong Style"
Tito Ortiz in Jon Jones were D2 wrestling colleges and we're not standouts and became UFC champions. Believe it or not high school wrestlers are pretty dangerous specially raised an state that cares about wrestling
Yeah but Norton is not referring to those guys, he's referring to guys who were professional wrestlers for years and had amateur wrestling backgrounds but after years of just doing Pro Wrestling they were expected to win shoot fights against guys who had been fighting all that time. Yuji Nagata was a good amateur wrestler but had been wrestling professionally for ten years by the time he fought in MMA, way past his competitive prime at 33 years old and likely not trained any amateur wrestling since being a professional wrestler they put him against a great Kickboxer and upcoming great MMA fighter Mirko Cro Cop. Kazuyuki Fujita and Shinsuke Nakamura were two guys who were clearly better shoot fighters than the rest of the Japanese wrestlers due to Shinsuke being in his early 20's so he wasn't far removed from his amateur wrestling days and Fujita has only wrestled professionally for four years until he fought in MMA. Fujita had also seeked out further training from Marco Ruas. What Inoki did to Yuji Nagata would be the equivalent to having Kurt Angle at 35 in 2003 after breaking his neck and several years of abusing his body in professional wrestling and suddenly expecting him to beat guys like Chuck Liddell or Tito Ortiz.
and GSP had no wrestling background, and was probably considered the best mma wrestler in mma
like Josh Koscheck seemed like an incredible athlete, and great wrestler
and it was surprizing when George got a takedown on him
@@justanobody0 GSP has been training in Martial Arts since he was a child and had his first MMA fight at 20, he dedicated his whole life to fighting. Not like the Japanese Pro wrestlers who did some amateur wrestling then stopped to completely focus on the professional aspect for 10+years then try to fight top fighters.
@kevthegoat8774 you bring up Kurt Angle and Mirko Crocop
well Shane Carwin seemed to have legitimate back problems (akin to Kurt angle)
and he was like 33 when he faced Gabriel Gonzaga (and won)
and since you brought up Crocop, Gonzga had beaten Crocop
@@justanobody0Shane Carwin had his first professional fight in 2005 at 30 years old while also being an assistant wrestling coach. Carwin even in 2005 destroys Angle who would have been 37 years old and going through a pain pill addiction.
Don was so tough he had a broken back and kept wrestling
During his MMA fight with Ken Shamrock, Ken broke both of Frye’s ankles but Don didn’t submit. He still beat Ken Shamrock via decision.
@@elmalifico3708He was also high on pain pills during the fight.
That’s because he was pilled up. He said so, himself.
@@moonkim2598 That's true. He also heavily taped up his ankles before the fight, knowing that Shamrock would likely go for heel hooks. But, to be fair to Don, he was very tough in general, and he never tapped out in his career. It looked like he was gonna allow Yoshida to break his arm when they fought. Don was caught in an arm bar and there was no indication that he was gonna tap. But the ref wisely stopped the match in time.
Should of asked scott about his wife/RVD scuffle 😅
Norton may have been a powerhouse but he didn't have the amateur wrestling skills of guys like Yuji Nagata and Manabu Nakanishi who were put in shoots and didn't do great, Norton wouldn't have done any better than either of them.
that would be like saying if Bob Sapp couldn't beat Ernesto Hoost
that would mean Bill Goldberg couldn't beat Ernesto Hoost, because Bob Sapp and Bill Goldberg are both former football players
by your logic Brock Lesnar (a pro wrestler) never should've beaten Heath Herring, because Brock is a pro wrestler with basically no mma experience (2nd fight) and Heath Herring was very experienced in mma in Japan
@@justanobody0Sapp and Lesnar are freaks of nature. Also Sapp did have some good wins like Hoost twice and Abidi he also lost to multiple much more experienced fighters like Sefo, Cro Cop, Bonjasky, Musashi, Aerts etc who all pretty much handled Sapp with little problems.
Lesnar was an NCAA D1 Champion who had started MMA training in 2005, only a few years removed from his amateur wrestling days in 2000.
Heath Herring was Lesnar's third MMA fight, Herring was at the end of his career and while durable was never good at defending takedowns. Jake O'Brien did the exact same thing to Herring not long before Lesnar did where he took him down multiple times with ease.
There's many legitimate tough guys in professional wrestling, but switching to MMA after professional wrestling for years is usually not a recipe for success. Guys like Rodney Mack and Sean O'Haire are great examples as Rodney Mack was a State Wrestling Champion with Greco Roman Wrestling experience and O'Haire was a Martial Artist but after a few years of Professional Wrestling they went into MMA and Mack went 1-1 and O'Haire went 4-2 and 0-4 in K-1 (The matchmaking was bad for him though.
If you want to see the difference between Lesnar and most professional wrestlers when it comes to shoot fighting, watch Sean O'Haire and Brock Lesnar's fights back to back with common opponent Kim Min-soo.
Scott Norton needs to read the Rough and Tumble book to learn how MMA was spawned from pro wrestling in Japan before Cro Cop or Don Frye with Shooto, Pancrase and Rings. He is a bit ignorant of the history before PrideFC
“I wanted to fight but they wouldn’t let me” 🙄
You can fight him
@@ShowtimeDr sure… let me fight you first tho
I can’t even recall Scott Norton in wrestling
He was a midcarder in WCW when he was in the NWO. Definitely a bigger deal in Japan, but had some success in the states
Tbh that strong style/mma is still messing up Japan wrestling 😂
Wanna be tough guys 😂
I'm not sure why Norton should have accepted a fight deal nor do I know why he was offered one although I assume it was the 90's when it was still more about freakiness and pitting styles against one another etc. but to my knowledge Norton does not have any training in real fighting. It's probably a good thing for his legacy that he did not accept the offer.
I'm guessing he's talking about the mid 2000's here when Inoki was going crazy booking his wrestlers in shoot fights. Norton may have been very strong and I'm sure he was a great bouncer/bodyguard but he has no wrestling/Martial Arts background. He would have got destroyed just like Yuji Nagata did.
Manabu Nakanishi was a Freestyle Wrestler that wrestled in the Olympics 1992. After 11 years of professional wrestling Inoki booked him in a Kickboxing match despite having no striking training against ex New Zealand's strongest man Paul Kingi, Nakanishi got knocked out in two minutes. Inoki also booked him in MMA which made more sense but put him against fellow wrestler Kazuyuki Fujita who was much more experienced in MMA at the time so lost that one too. Nakanishi no doubt would have beaten Norton though.
@kevthegoat8774 Yeah. There are a couple shoot or fight stories about Norton and both of them seem to have Norton not coming out on top. One was with the black karate guy who allegedly kicked him in the ring and Norton did nothing and another alleged incident was with Tony Halme knocking him out in a bar. Some say it was a sucker punch and the whole story may be a fabrication but Tony (AKA Ludvig Borga) was a legitimate boxing champion though known for his sloppy technique; I think it's doubtful that Tony would have needed to sucker punch Norton given that he went on to beat the European boxing champion in the ring. Other than Tony's boxing they would have been quite evenly matched.
@kevthegoat8774 as I understand it Ernesto Hoost is considered one of the greatest kickboxers of all time, if not the greatest
and Bob Sapp beat him twice I think? (at least once if I recall correctly)
I don't think anyone would say Bob Sapp trained more kickboxing, or has better technique, but at the end of the day Bob Sapp won (twice?)
and the other thing I'd say is, you don't know who is going to win until the bout happens
would everyone say a 45 year Dan Henderson who fought at MW (185 pounds) would be Fedor?
@@justanobody0 Bob Sapp was 29 years old with insane size/athletic ability. He was much fresher and stronger than professional wrestlers who had been abusing their bodies for years in worked matches and not doing any training.
@kevthegoat8774 "He was much fresher and stronger than professional wrestlers who had been abusing their bodies for years"
well, I guess someone would have to ask Scott Norton how his body felt at that time
in the video he said he wanted to do mma when he was offered, so it sounds like he felt good
Tbh that strong style/mma is still messing up Japan wrestling 😂
Wanna be tough guys 😂